Enga mellom fjella

Radish patch [178] (615 words)

He loved the radish patch. Fat and white, red and round, multi-colored like Easter eggs. He didn't eat them. Just grew them to give away. He placed bowls by the roadside, delivered them in boxes complete with a color-matched bow.

The radishes loved him too. He planted as early as he could. Even grew a few in a window box in winter. The Spanish Blacks were his favorite winter radish. He grew them for an herbalist who used them to detox the liver and gall-bladder.

That's how he first met her. Slim and shaped like a Spaniard, strong flavored and long lasting.

She felt the attraction too: how he crawled between the rows, caressing every leaf, how he checked for bugs and gently pulled those ready to be harvested. She saw how he made love to the daikons, figured she could do better.

She learned how to make creamy radish soup, rubbing the excess olive oil into the valley between her breasts. She roasted them with garlic, added the greens to her salad, shredded them with celeriac and pomegranate, fried them up to make crisps. She practiced on her mother, her neighbor, even her dog. It was time.

She made a pot of Earl Grey tea and sipped until her Radish Man arrived.

She fed him. Encouraged him to add a touch of salt. She hid her bottle of arsenic at the back of the shelf. No need to alarm him.

She inveigled her way into his life, offering to help weed the spinach, carrots and cabbage so he could concentrate on his radish beds. She became his delivery 'boy' making sure to include her special jars of pickled radishes.

People began to pay! She became his 'gal' Friday, cooking the books along with dinner.

Come winter she snuggled up in his bed. Cherry Belle and White Beauty just mewed in despair. Daikon the schnauzer kept watch.

By Spring, the fields had been well plowed and she felt sufficed, radiant as a radish in fact. There was a glow... she hadn't told him yet.

Early Summer found her weeding and picking and cooking.

She wanted a scarecrow so she placed her former boyfriend's head on a stick to ward off the crows and nosy neighbors. He thought she'd found the ghastly horror in a Halloween store. She didn't bother to correct him. She wanted her Radish Man to herself.

Each day she sprinkled their food with spices and what looked like salt.

By June she had to tell him the truth. He'd planted more than radish seeds.

By July Radish Man wasn't feeling so good. She promised him she'd tend to the radish bed and she did. He watched from the window as she caressed her stomach and gathered the last of the globes.

What shall we call him, she murmured one day before she made her rounds.

Zlata was to hard to pronounce. French Breakfast was asking for the kid to be beat up. Helios sounded like a Greek god. White Icicle got them both laughing. Daikon was already taken.

On his death bed she told him she had chosen Fred. Radish Man looked puzzled. So she explained. Fred's swimmers wouldn't swim. His did.

But Fred?

Oh, not to worry, she assured him. She explained how she had fed Fred arsenic just like she had fed him. Then she had pickled him. The shock on Radish Man's face was perfect so she continued that it was his head out there in the garden looking a bit ragged these days.

She helped him sip some tea.

Once he was pickled he'd look as radiant as a radish guarding his beloved patch.

© Kåre Enga [177.178] (8.avgust.2020)

About 615 words.

** Image ID #2227849 Unavailable **